


A Stinging Nepenthe

by michaelLemieux



Category: Hannibal (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, also kind of one sided, its cute but sad?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 09:17:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7262086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michaelLemieux/pseuds/michaelLemieux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While guest lecturing at Stanford University, Will Graham notices an interesting, young student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my partner, who not only cheered me on, but wouldn't let me stop once I got going.

Finals week. An indomitable, horrible, petrifying week for many of the current students at Stanford. The library was nigh full to the brim with frenetic studiers praying to all forces willing to help that they reach whatever goals have them trapped within the walls of a learning institute. The marvel of such a normal event had worn off three semesters ago when Sam Winchester found himself neck deep in the panicked rush towards the finish line alongside the civilians. 

Will Graham on the other hand, was sitting mildly in the midst of it, feeling out the general state of the students he would be lecturing the next day, and acclimating himself to the bustling hive of minds. He was still green around the gills at teaching, where (familiar with a classroom setting) he had little experience walking into an upset, pre-existing classroom ecosystem as both a foreigner and threat. 

His mind dulls to the feeling of frantic pulses, smell of anxious sweat, and look of pained determination surrounding him in his second hour of sitting amoungst the rabble. This is deemed a worthy immunity to the students and lets the golden pendulum sweep them away table by table. 

Sam Winchester sweeps the softly curled tips of his hair over the bridge of his ear and away from his face. 

The pendulum sweeps across the landscape before Will’s eyes and leaves him alone with Sam Winchester only a few tables away. 

It’s easy to read in him that this is more important than being with his kind. Family, or friends, were left to pursue this venture and it leaves the mark of sturdier determination in Sam’s face. Written into the lines settled around his mouth and brow. 

Will blinks, his lashes sweeping away all other thoughts as Will rises within his mind to stand closer to Sam. The shirt he wears is cheap and old. Cuffed sleeves worn with lines of use, small holes ignored, sweat and oil as much a part of the fabric as they are to Sam’s skin. It fits wrong. Bought second-hand, then. Or given as a hand-me-down. Will judges it is the latter, as the collar sits unfamiliarly in the usual, folded position. Someone else wore the collar up, and it wasn’t Sam. 

A bag sits beside Sam’s legs. It’s well-used and near it’s end, but the load this time is light as the textbooks Sam has been studying with are from the library. He doesn’t have money. A short period of observation reveals that Sam is a good studier. He’s learned in how to make the most of the time he has and force himself to yield the best results. A tough home. No one to help him with his work or with studying. A boy built from scratch. 

His frame is thin, hard earned muscle, and no fat. He takes care of himself in the most basic meaning of the word. The haircut is self-given and grown-in. He sweeps some of the hair behind his ear again. Self-conscious. Uncomfortable in the large frame he’s grown into, but at least comfortable in that discomfort. Well-fitted to being the outsider, but yearning for the sense of normalcy he achieves by being here. 

Will’s hand reaches for the lock of hair at the edge of his hairline. It’s tucked carefully behind his ear, and then disturbed when Will’s fingers move through the same sweeping motion Sam’s does. A few seconds before Sam himself starts, Will is flipping his pen about and around his thumb in an offhanded gesture. 

The world shatters as a book slams onto the table beside Will. He jumps at the sudden break in his concentration and stands, shuffling quickly away from the now too loud library. Everything is invasive and aggravating in comparison to the serenity of observing Sam, and the whirl of leaving the library means Will misses the brief look of worry that crosses Sam’s face when he looks up to see Will retreat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a busy cafe, on finals day.

The commons is packed. Core classes have come to the cumulative conclusion that this week shall be Hell for all, and most of the semester finals take place some time this week. Students are running down the cafe’s supplies of espresso with orders of extra shots, and red-eyes. Listening to the orders being made are enough to make Will’s head spin, not to mention the anxious tension he’s picked up from the barista’s filling such wordy orders. 

He takes a sip of his blessedly simple black coffee and closes his eyes to the scenery. The pendulum swings back and forth on the inside of his eyelids and sweeps away the noise and clatter filling up the cafe. Bitter coffee and quiet is how Will had intended to spend his morning on campus, and, really, he should have known better than to come here for coffee. A niggling maggot mutters something at the back of his brain, but he’s always ignored that particular voice, and does so once more. 

“Uhm, excuse me, sir?” 

Will shudders, breath catching in his chest and forcing him to set down his coffee lest he crush the cup as his eyes jerkily sweep his surroundings for the too-close voice.   
In the second between finding the face that spoke, and his mind catching up to who it was, Will convinces himself that it’s only another student asking to take yet another chair from the table he currently occupied. There was only one left besides his own, and no more tables with any less than two people at them. 

However, the face his eyes settled on was that of the outcast in the library that he had found himself taken by. The angular face budding from childhood roundness was waiting dutifully for something from him, and Will throws down his guess in the form of a stammered, “Y-yes?” 

“May I sit with you?” Sam asks, gesturing gently with his free hand to the seat in front of him, directly to Will’s right. 

“O-oh, uhm, yes.” 

Sam nods his thanks in conjunction with speaking it and seats himself at the small table. He sets his bag on the ground on the other side of the chair that faces Will, so as not to disturb him, and doesn’t set his cup down at all, simply holding it in his hands. 

“I won’t bother you long, I have a class in ten minutes,” Sam assures Will, looking anxious. 

Will swallows his tongue and nods, his jaw setting and eyes fluttering to focus on the rim of his glasses. He takes another gulp full of coffee, half-wishing he’d made the decision to go somewhere else, while some other part of him is humming happily next to Sam. 

Raising his head to face Sam without making eye-contact, he holds out a hand. 

“My name is Will Graham,” he proffers. 

Sam hesitates and takes his hand with a firm grip. His hands are calloused, rough, scarred. He lived a working life before this. Something strenuous and labor-intensive. The scars are conducive to gun related wounds. Will has very similar ones himself, but he somehow doesn’t see Sam as a military dog, or cop. The will needed to be here doing this would be the opposite of what any military organization looked for. 

“Sam Winchester.” 

Will nods, grateful that Sam did not seek his gaze. He closes his eyes briefly and lets the pendulum wash away the other pollution. With ease, it’s just him and Sam sitting alone in the cafe. 

Neither of them wish for conversation, so none is made. Will observes Sam through the corner of his eye as he drinks his coffee, and Sam is absorbed in his own thoughts as he sips at his own. Sam sends half-glances at Will that don’t go unnoticed, but he doesn’t pry or seem uncomfortable on the outside. Will can see that there’s something bothering Sam about Will, and he supposes it’s what usually bothers people about him. The smooth lake that reflects only what is cast onto it’s surface. Those who pay attention catch on easily to that aspect of Will’s personality, and more often than not, it’s unnerving. 

“I’ve got to go,” Sam murmurs, rising. 

“Okay,” Will answers, not looking up to watch him go. 

“This was… nice. It was nice to meet you,” Sam says, surprising himself with the sincerity of the statement. 

“You, too,” Will replies, giving Sam his own patented ‘polite smile’ as a good-bye. 

Curiosity pulls at Sam’s brow for a moment, and then smooths away as Sam raises a hand briefly in good-bye and leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Under the cover of darkness, the skeleton sank beneath the ocean waves to embrace its luminescent lover. The jellyfish tenderly twirled its tendrils about the skeleton, the numbing stings a welcome nepenthe. Theirs was a forbidden love."

"Hello, Sam."

The greeting went ignored. Will didn't blame him. It was a loud bar, and Sam seemed to be occupied by some friend sitting with him at the bar. Instead of making a second attempt at communication, Will orders another drink with what is only a sullen, slightly inebriated look on his face.

To his luck, the friend holding Sam's attention leaves to pursue a woman and Sam turns back to the bar as Will picks up his drink.

"Mr. Graham?"

"Yes?" he replies, turning slowly to face... Sam.

After a quick glance around, it seems that whoever had been with Sam was no longer there and his attention was now focused on Will. As divided, and drunken, as it was.

"Uhm, hi. I didn't think I would see you here."

Will nods, watching Sam's lips instead of his eyes, taking a nervous sip of his whiskey. It's his last day here in California, and he wanted to... He doesn't want to think about what he wanted to do here. Get a last taste of whatever infectious piece of Sam caught him? Drink away his sorrows at having only been given a brief taste of that same something that drew him in?

"I'm leaving tomorrow."

Sam's eyes widen and his brow furrows in an upset sort of confusion. His expressions are more telling now that he's drunk. He had some sort of affection for Will, even if it was in a simple, 'he seems nice' kind of way.

Unconsciously, Will mirrors the soft, nervous but polite smile that Sam had given him when they sat together at the cafe. He glances up to look at the colour of Sam's eyes, then back down to his lips, and somehow it doesn't bother Sam when he notices.

"Sorry to hear that," he murmurs, brushing his hair behind his ears again.

Will fidgets with his glasses and looks around the loud bar.

"Would you like to... move somewhere quieter?" he asks, borrowing the lilt of some bimbo who'd hit on him a few years back.

Sam’s startled by the forwardness, already starting to back away and refuse when Will’s face registers the sexual implications and shakes his head, whole body trembling slightly. 

“Purely to talk,” he says, hands up submissively. 

To the surprise of both, Sam agrees. Jess wasn’t in the bar like Brady said she’d be anyways. There wasn’t anything to keep him in the bar. Might as well go outside with Mr. Graham.

Will stops them on the sidewalk near the bar, where it was quieter, yes, and there were no strobe lights to hurt his eyes. Tension seeped from Will’s shoulders, but only a bit of it, as he allowed his headache to die down a bit. 

“Is… is this your first year teaching?” Sam asks gently. 

“Yes, it is,” Will answers, wincing minutely at a sudden twinge in his shoulder. 

Sam rubs his hands together nervously, shoulders and head tucked in so that his impressive height and shoulder width might seem less imposing. Will takes that to mean that Sam can be a threat. He’s afraid that everyone can see that bit of him that he himself is afraid of and he needs to hide it. Compensate for that darkness by seeming meek. 

Will swallows and fixes his glasses again, a noise of pain almost escaping him as he raised his injured arm. 

“I was a cop,” Will explains, unheeded. 

Sam nods, listening intently, but Will doesn’t offer anything more than that. 

“I… My family wanted me to be like that. Not cops, but… the family business. Helping people. Killing things. I didn’t want that kind of violence to become my life.” 

Sam is appalled at how much he’s revealed about that past with only a few sentences, and Will is feeling the same fear. Their eyes meet for a split-second, before both pairs jump away. 

“I don’t think you’re a freak,” Will says. 

His next thought is that he’s had far too much whiskey, and the other is that suddenly he’s very warm. Sam’s body is inches from his in a moment, and a ring-bearing hand is touching his throat. Will blinks, the body warm silver just above the collar of his shirt as he looks up at Sam. 

It was too personal. That wasn’t something anyone could have known from the meager relationship Sam had with Will. There was no way he could have known how Sam felt unless he wasn’t natural. Wasn’t human. But the silver didn’t effect him. He was simply staring at Sam in mild confusion. 

There was more than confusion going on in Will’s head while Sam was holding his neck. He hadn’t seen this coming. He didn’t know what Sam was thinking, or what he was thinking. He wanted out, wanted not to be touched. Sam shouldn’t be this close to him, shouldn’t be staring at him like this. Trying to meet his gaze. 

Will looks up. Shaky brown eyes meet shifting hazel. Will is afraid. So afraid. There’s confusion and violence in Sam’s eyes, and he sees that threat Sam sees in himself. The awful malignance that lurks in his psyche. The same malignance that Will fears from himself. 

Sam’s panicking. He’s finally seeing Will eye-to-eye and his fear is reflected back at him. One of Will’s feet stutter backwards and Sam’s grip on his neck tightens reflexively. Will flinches and the tremors in his hands worsen. He doesn’t have any weapons on him, having dispensed them after becoming a teacher. Sam does have weapons on him. Will knows he does. The air is heavy with potential threat and it hurts Sam so much seeing what had been earnest affection ferment into fear. 

It’s his last move to take away some of that fear, and while it’s something he wouldn’t do normally at all, it is the option he chooses. 

Sam kisses him. 

Will grimaces against Sam’s lips, and the kiss almost ends there for Sam’s fear of rejection, but he needs Will to believe that this was his intent, not a threat. He resettles more comfortably against Will’s lips, wrapping an arm around his waist when his legs give under a full body tremor that lingers over Will’s head. Sam squeezes his eyes shut tighter and forces himself to ignore all these signs that his advances are unwelcome until he feels Will slowly place a hand on his hip and relax a bit against him. 

Then, he pulls away, and runs. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reunion of Sam and Will in the year 2007.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is set during early season three of Supernatural and pre-season one of Hannibal. There is more to come.

-2007- 

 

“There’s a case in Baltimore,” Dean leads, dropping back into the driver’s side of the Impala. “Three bodies have shown up missing organs. All happened close to the moon. Figure it’s worth checking out at least.” 

Sam grunts, picking through the bag of food and finding it wanting of anything he wants to eat at the moment. He can feel Dean’s disgruntled look on his face, but he doesn’t meet it, instead pulling out a map that Dean probably doesn’t need. They’ve talked about it and they both know that the feelings on the matter aren’t going to change. It all still falls under, “Let’s kill some things, and raise a little Hell.” 

They were nearby finishing a rawhead case in Virginia, so the drive north to Baltimore took less than a day. 

The local police forces were already antagonized and outright finished with reporters looking for answers, so they took their queries to the families who showed an almost equal distaste in the sight of journalists. 

Left to the mercy of local college professors for insight on why a werewolf could be hunting for hearts on days surrounding the moon rather than only the moon, they find themselves on a campus that reminds Sam a little too much of Stanford and not enough of a case. 

“Dean, this is insane. The papers are saying it’s the Ripper, and that’s who the cops are looking for. There aren’t any signs this is anything even related to what we’re supposed to be doing! We should be looking for ways to get your soul back!” 

“Sam, give it a rest! You know damn well there’s nothing for us to do about my deal, and I am not going to go looking for ways to get you killed again!” 

Dean’s eyes are red-rimmed. His shoulders are tense to the point of pain, and his eyes have more baggage than the brothers had combined. With no sleep, little nutrients, and a body pushed to its limits, his skin had turned pallad. Sam saw none of this. Only the facade of a stubborn older brother that was refusing his help. 

“Fine. Fuck you, too,” Sam grumbles, stalking off angrily. 

Dean tells himself Sam’s just mad. Blowing up at him because he’s frustrated. Dean gets that. He does. It doens’t bother him if Sam gets pissed every now and then. But he’s lying to himself again, and seeing Sam say ‘fuck you’ and leaving hurts more than… 

He closes his eyes and walks away. 

 

 

Sam walks halfway across campus before he realises not only that he’s lost, but that he regrets reacting the way he did. It was dumb, grief-driven anger, and it was misplaced. He didn’t blame Dean for being stubborn and scared of losing his baby brother again, but he also didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand how a freak, screw-up like him could be worth selling your soul. There wasn’t anything worth Dean’s soul. Not him, not dad, not even the world itself. That stupid, bossy, gross brother of his was a fucking hero in more ways than he would ever know, but becoming a martyr was taking it too goddamned far. 

It felt like spit on his face. 

He didn’t quite know why yet. 

Pulling his head up, he finally looks around him. Sam’s in a quad of some sort. There’s buildings and grass on opposite sides, a concrete walkway leading into criminology buildings on his left. 

Sam checks behind him to see if Dean had followed. His heart sank a bit when he realised his brother hadn’t followed. So he turns and starts towards the buildings. 

 

 

Class had just ended. Another presentation on a killer with a methodology the college felt Will was expert enough to lecture on. The kids thought so too. 

Will stared up at the newest sounder of victims to fall to the ripper. He let’s himself slip into the skin of a remorseless killer that brought works of art into the world from the rotting flesh of pigs worthy only of being devoured. 

With a blink of an eye, he breaks himself from the skeleton of a killer uncaught, and turns to face the straggler(?) left in his room.   
“Hello, Mr. Graham,” Sam says anxiously, stepping forward from the rows of seats. 

“Sam. It’s been… four years, hasn’t it?” Will asks, mind already racing through new details of Sam’s pathology. 

It’s been rough. Sam’s grown into his frame, more muscle packed on from labour. His eyes are tired from worry and crying. Tragedy has entered his life on a grand scale, and Sam’s barely stumbling through one mine after the last. He’s more broken than he was before. There was pain in his eyes, fear, of himself, of the world, but now it’s bloomed into anger. Something drastic happened. He’s convinced of his freakdom. He carries himself like Jesus carried the cross. Wishing, wanting, yearning for atonement he isn’t sure he can find. 

“Yeah,” Sam murmurs, wincing at the thought of their last encounter and clasping his elbow in one hand. 

“You aren’t here for one of my classes,” Will states. “Is this a… social visit?” 

Sam ponders Will’s meaning for a few seconds, then blushes, shaking his head. 

“I’m here for work.” 

“Fast work to be certified this early,” Will remarks. 

“Oh, no, I’m… I’m not here as a lawyer.” 

Will looks over Sam again, and it clicks into place. The bad taste in Sam’s mouth about the work he’s here on. 

“The family business.” 

Sam grimaces. Nods. 

“I suppose then… the Ripper case brought you here.”

Will rounds his podium, glancing up at the collage of carnage currently still on his projector. The violence Sam didn’t want to become his life. It was now a nightmarescape for them both to tread. Forced to look upon the gruesome ends of slain humans, seek the killer, and put it down. 

Sam looks up at the photos with disgust plain on his face. He hated seeing the crime scenes. He couldn’t understand the motive of someone who would do that. He could, of course, give you the statistics of the most gruesome hundred serial killers of the United States, but he could never see their purpose. 

“Yeah. The Ripper. Is it really him?” Sam questions, still looking at the pictures. 

“Yes,” Will answers strongly, no measure of doubt in his mind. 

Sam’s eyes turn from the photos to Will’s face. He looks so far away to Sam. Closed off in ways he’ll never understand, but this is conviction on his face. Pure and simple. 

“You look good.” 

The words are out of his mouth nearly as soon as Sam thinks them. It’s true, however. The years have been kinder to Mr. Graham than they have been to Sam. He looks more rested, more… settled. There’s the same tenseness to his shoulders, the nervous shudder, twitches that snap into place Sam’s characteristics instead of Will’s. 

Will’s brow furrows unhappily, confusion and unrest building in the face he turns to Sam. Suddenly, there weren’t any not-him thoughts in his head. It was only Will Graham asking questions. Things like ‘is this a line?’ and ‘is he going to kiss me again?’ 

“You should go find your brother,” Will says instead, shoulders drawing together as he tucks his head down and away from Sam. 

Sam is startled once more by the astuteness that Will is capable of, but this time believes that Will is human. 

“Yeah, I should, huh?” 

Sam bites his lip, wishing that he didn’t feel like a rapist the way he did in this situation, and left to find Dean. 


	5. Chapter 5

Will staggers a step back. There's a strong jaw where the wall on the opposite side of his door should be, and when he looks up to mark the face, he meets the eyes of the person in his doorway and he mutters a soft, "fuck." Scrambling another few steps backwards he hears the practiced rumble of charming rhetoric, but the words don't translate.

The man's eyes are heavily bagged, lined with red from what Will knows is waking up screaming, and the muscles along his neck are those of someone whose body betrays their usual motionless sleep with jerking. His jaw musculature reveals that he clenches his teeth and probably has for years. While his body and face does not show it, Will can tell in the handling of himself that this man is much older in spirit than he looks. It's the same look of young men who come back from service only a year older, but they've already become old men in their mind. Wizened and tortured by what they've seen. That same old, painful, guilty, vicious look is in those shifting green eyes, and Will loses himself in it. Feels the horror of the things those eyes can't unsee and tremors start along his knuckles, bleeding up into his arms until his shoulders shake. He knows the signs of PTSD more intimately than even some of those suffering from it, and this was the look of a man thrown back into his life and roles that he hasn’t filled in years. 

"Mr. Graham?" Sam asks at the same moment Dean rips his eyes away, hating that look he thought only Pamela could give him. 

Will pulls his eyes away from the startling man before him and makes eye contact with Sam. He's grown again, is Will's first thought. The second is that he's much changed in other ways. More important ways. 

"Sam," Will stammers, fixing his glasses and looking at the floor, no longer at either of them. 

Sam now has the look of a man who’s given up much of what used to be his metaphorical ‘lines to not cross’, and he’s decided not to look back. Last time they’d met, Sam had been desperate and angry, roiling in the violence surrounding him on all sides and the encroaching darkness of a Bad End. Now, he has become a part of the violence filling his life, and he propagated it as it suited him. This was a less innocent, less humane Sam. 

"We were hoping you could help us," Sam asks, just the right pitch of pleading to inspire sympathy. Manipulating Will the way he would a grieving mother for information about the deceased. 

"Get to the point, Sam. Don't waste time with your lies," he says before the hunter can manage another word of their established story to garner help.  Sam's eyes are darker. There's less remorse in his actions and that thing he feared about himself has been leashed and put to work for him. It's a dangerous road, and he's far enough along that Will knows there's no turning back. Sam will never again be the college boy Will met four years ago, and he can no longer see that Will knows him better than anyone else. Sam can only see a Will Graham that is a mark for him to con into aiding his cause. Depersoned. Useful, but no longer a part of Sam’s nervous flirtation with social norms. 

He pulls his glasses down to pinch the bridge of his nose, a headache already forming at his temples and the trembling still present. 

Dean meanwhile reels at Will's insight, hand twitching towards his concealed Glock. Sam had warned him that Will was good at seeing things you wouldn't expect, but for someone that Sam was pretty sure wasn't psychic, he knew a lot. Fuck, Dean could even hear his own tenor and accent in Will's voice already after having only said a few things. It rose the hairs on his neck and gave him a sick feeling. Like Will wasn't human. All he could see in the man was a shuddery, closed off mess reflecting his voice and speech patterns into his face. He couldn't tell what Will thought of them, if he believed their story, or thought they were up to something. He couldn't tell what Will thought about anything that happened except that he seemed tired and spooked. Something about nothing getting to Will made Dean want to beat into him until he got a reaction. 

Sam pulls out the case file they'd brought with them, and Dean's hand slips into his pocket, thumbing on the emp reader. No reaction. When Will's head bows to look at the pictures in the file, Dean pulls the thing out to check that it really is on. It is. And still nothing. 

Cramming the thing back into his pocket, Dean grumbles internally that the truly weird shit only started happening after Castiel appeared, and silently blames the angel for this outlier as well. 

Will is grimacing at the pictures, looking over them and then taking a step back. "Give me a minute," he murmurs, taking his glasses off and casting his gaze towards the pictures again. 

Dean watches as all the nervous ticks fall away from Will. More than fall, they seem to  _ slide _ away. His eyes close and when they open again, it gives Dean goosebumps. This time he does put his hand on his gun, watching in horror as the nervous, insightful, but ultimately harmless man he'd just met turns into what Dean can only describe as a demon. Even if his eyes aren't black, there's a look to the demons Dean grew to know in Hell, and, secretly, in the part of himself that he doesn't air, he knows that's what he looks like, too. But this... This is unbridled. Unfiltered. Plain and vicious disregard for anything but the thrill of pain and death and it resonates more soundly with Dean than anything else. 

"Christo."

Will full-body shudders, turning a startled look to Dean. His eyes remain the muddy brown they've always been, but fear floods in again. He's watching Dean, and this time neither of them can tear their eyes away. It's not the first time someone has said 'Christo' in front of Will and he knows it’s a bad sign when someone does. It means they see him as a threat and they themselves become a threat to him. 

Will imagines he can feel the knife in his shoulder again, and he watches as Dean assesses him as another fucked up human he can't understand. It's the harder option, but Sam said that Will didn't react to silver, and he wasn't a demon, so he must be something other. Something more screwed up than a monster that doesn't know any better. More fucked than a demon that does it for the Hell of it. Retarded socially like those cannibals in Hibbing. Dean's blood boils at the thought. Would Graham take his Sammy and try to kill him too? 

Will sees it the instant all pity Dean affords his fellow humans blinks out of existence and he's decided that the teacher is now a threat. His hand twitches the same time Dean's does, and the moment is broken only seconds from becoming a fire fight. 

"Dean, stop," Sam orders softly, giving his brother's shoulder a shove. 

That heated, malign look snaps to Sam for a second before it shifts suddenly to brotherly ire. He shoves Sam back and looks away, bored but on alert. Watching Will from the corner of his eye. 

Tension wires tight all of Will's muscles, and he hasn't had to deal with this kind of stress since he left the force. It physically hurts him, and, damnit, he has two more lectures today, but now all he wants to do is lie down with his dogs and let their uncomplicated love for him unknot the kinks of his mind. 

"Thomas Ensworth," Will says. "It was trial of the year a while back when they tried his accomplice. Stockholm Syndrome at its finest. He was institutionalised. Ensworth died in a house explosion. Or so they thought." 

Sam's brow furrows and leans in to Will, the epitome of an attentive listener. "So they thought?" 

Will looks up at Sam’s face, reading the intrigue and eagerness for the hunt. His heart softly breaks for the young man so intent on doing good without violence having become this person. He silently closes himself to Sam. That young college boy will stay with him as an untouched memory, but this Sam. This version that’s become so riddled with fear and hate and violence will settle amongst the ilk of those Will doesn’t want to remember or affect him. Nameless, muddled figures that clutter his mindscape, washed away in the quiet of the stream.

"Those new pictures? They have to be him. The other alternative is... Well, more unsettling. A copy cat with extreme empathy that can completely take on the personality of Thomas. As far as I know, there's no one else capable of that. So, it must be Ensworth." 

Sam nods gravely, understanding. "Thank you, Mr. Graham," he says sincerely. 

"Will. You aren't a college boy anymore, Sammy, you can use my first name." 

While his body language hasn't changed from closed off and unsettled, the voice is so starkly not his own that both brothers bristle at the sound of it. Dean mind is on his gun again and Sam skirts a look at him that shows how uncertain he is. 

"I gotta get going, alright? You've used up enough of my lunch break as is. I'm tempted to say you owe me a beer." 

"I'd like that," Sam bursts out. 

Will startles suddenly, his eyes darting between Sam's shoes. Suddenly, he doesn't have a handle on what Dean's voice sounds like anymore and he can't pull on anyone else's personalities right now. With three words Sam wiped away everyone but Will himself and that’s more terrifying than having a killer in his head. His vision swims and he imagines a Sam with horns and great black wings, the vision of Satan that tempts and beguiles with a pretty face.

"What?" he croaks questioningly, brow tightening almost painfully and his throat tries to close on him. 

"After our work is done. I'll buy you a beer. As thanks." 

Dean is frantically trying to give Sam a strong 'what the fuck?!' vibe, but Sam is pointedly ignoring it. Now that he's put his foot in his mouth, he might as well go the whole mile and follow through. 

"I... Uhm. Y-yes?" Will answers, voice still uncomfortably tight and shaky, his lip starting to tremble as he frantically tries to pull on something, anything in his mind that would take his own personality out of the equation. 

"Great," Dean says too loudly, shoving his hands in his pockets and starting for the door. "It's a date, then!" 

Sam frowns as his brother stomps out, and turns his eyes back to Will. "Sorry about him. He's..." 

"Been through Hell," Will finishes, happy to think about what he saw in Dean rather than what he sees in himself. "Both of you have. And it's not done, is it? You're still going through Hell. I hope you come out on the other side… all right." 

Will picks up his bag, nods to Sam and scurries out the door without another word. 


End file.
